Oh, do not say that thanklessness has been
Thy sole reward! What? Wouldst thou be rewarded?
When God had laid the gift into thy heart,
Thy hand, upon the road thou hadst to tread?
Lay all thy thanks before the feet of him
Who did not shun thy help, thy gift, thy love,
But bore the humiliation and the weakness,
And bared his heart before thy human gaze,
The heart where none but God e'er read the truth,
The burning record of despair. Be humble,
Thyself, and touch not roughly, where the wound
Is open, see the beads of anguish on
The furrowed brow, the tightdrawn lips, and hear
The tremor in the whispered words, that roll
So heavily from off the heart, and leave
It crushed, sometimes for ever. Dost thou know
What lifeblood it hath cost to speak to thee,
What tortured nights have gone before, what cry
Of anguish rose towards that God, who seemed
So merciless to him and overkind
To thee, allowing thee to be his angel,
To answer when a living word of love
Had to be spoken, and a hand put out to help.
Make him forget what he has told thee,
Let him not feel that thou hast not forgotten,
But make him help thee in his turn, when thine
The pain, the care, the fear; allow him then
To tend thee, and to pay his debt to thy
Humility, and to thy thankfulness.